The Scottish EDGE newsletter

What to include in your 60 second video pitch

Your solution - i.e what will you do to solve that problem; who is the team within your business who can make this happen

Business model - how are you going to make money

What do you want the person viewing this pitch to do as a result of seeing your pitch (provide investment, buy your product, offer advice, etc)

Keys to content and delivery

Have passion: Koffler says great pitches leave you with the impression that the speaker is so passionate about his or her idea that the person will move mountains to make it happen. Your passion is reflected by your energy, your personal stories, and the words you use.

Make sure you demonstrate that you understand your business and its customers: It takes discipline and a solid understanding of the market you operate in to distill the essence of your product or service into 150 words (which is the number of words you can comfortably speak in 60 seconds). Investors/judges also want to know exactly who your customers are. If you say, "My market is every woman in the world," nobody will believe you. But if you say, "This product will appeal to women ages 31 to 39 who are starting families..." your specificity tells the investor you have done your homework.

Offer an industry perspective: You can't differentiate your product unless you understand the industry. The worst thing to say in a pitch is, "We don't have any competitors." Investors/judges will wonder why. They might think you don't have competitors because there's no market for your product. At the very least, an investor/judge will think you failed to do your homework. Great pitches acknowledge the competition and point out why their offering is different.

Add the "magic dust": This is the sentence that leads investors/judges to want to hear more. No savvy investor/judge pumps cash into a company on the basis of a 60-second pitch alone. But 60 seconds is enough time to get them interested enough to ask serious follow-up questions and begin the process of evaluating the company for a potential investment.

Tell them who you are and why you need the money: Great presenters highlight their track record in a particular field, the experience of their teams, or why they are uniquely qualified to bring a product to market. A winning pitch is also very specific about why the company or entrepreneur needs money and what he or she intends to do with it.